Live Review (With Photos): Ben Bridwell Perseveres Through Noise at Intimate Birdsmell Show (November 9th, 2013)

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It’s been a number of years since I’ve been to Chattanooga, TN’s Rhythm and Brews. I have a lot of happy memories at this venue, so Saturday night’s Birdsmell show was like a homecoming for me.

The opener, a guy named Bryan Cates, stood on stage with his acoustic guitar and black-framed eyeglasses, playing a short set of mostly love songs. I felt bad for him because practically nobody paid him much attention. And when he asked the sound tech to up his guitar microphone, the tech yelled out that next time, he needed to bring a pickup for his guitar. As Cates left the stage, he received a quiet round of applause, though I think it was mostly in response to him leaving.

Before starting his performance, Ben Bridwell could be seen walking onstage, tuning his guitar and testing his equipment, as if it was no big deal. And it wasn’t. That casual vibe set the stage for his show – an intimate affair with a man whose been known to pack out arenas at times with Band of Horses.

The fact that Bridwell was recovering from losing his voice didn’t deter him from playing a solid, mostly acoustic show. He did his best to make it through the roughly 15 songs he played during the show and the six songs he played for his encore. That’s right, folks: Bridwell played an encore, even though his voice wasn’t in tip-top shape. Because that’s the kind of performer he is.

He started solo for the first half, playing a few Band of Horses songs, including a lovely version of Everything All the Time closer “St. Augustine.” Matt Gentling from Archers of Loaf eventually joined him on bass, and the duo played a few songs Bridwell had written over the years but had not officially released. This Birdsmell tour has clearly given Bridwell a chance to drop his guard a bit: A main fixture of his setlists has been a surprisingly tender cover of Florida-Georgia Line’s country-rap smash “Cruise.”

Bridwell interacted with the audience as much as he could, despite the surprisingly large amount of talking going on within the audience. It’s something I had forgotten about with this particular venue, and I assumed that with an artist of this stature, it would have been a deterrent. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. At times, the crowd was talking so loudly that my wife and I had to strain at points to hear what the musician was saying. And at one point, Bridwell himself noted between songs how loud it was. It was really annoying. Even more annoying was the amount of people making out at this show, including a couple right in front of us who kept looking back at us periodically. I couldn’t tell if they were silently inviting us to join them or trying to get our approval.

It’s funny how your perspective can change over a few years. At one time, Rhythm and Brews was one of my go-to venues for live music. But this time, I was embarrassed at the amount of general disrespect that was showed by the audience to Bridwell, who liked Chattanooga so much when he played here with Band of Horses just a few months ago that he hand-picked it for this tour.

Bridwell, of course, took everything in stride. He had fun playing — and more importantly, I could tell he was having fun. When he came out after the show, he took time to chat with fans, get photos made and thank everyone personally for coming.

Thank you, Ben Bridwell, for coming back to Chattanooga. Please don’t let this experience keep you from coming back. We’d love to have you.

Check out Amy Fletcher’s photos below:

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